Moment of Truth GTA 3 short story
by Yonga
Summary: A short story I wrote describing what was going through Claudes head when he comes back from Asukas last mission to discover her and Miguel dead, as well as Maria kidnapped. Would love to hear anyone's thoughts about it!


Starring ahead at the road in front of him with the radio off, and Uzi in his lap, he was returning to the former Cartel held headquarters where Asuka was waiting for him to return. The weather was crappy, cloudy with a bit of rain, was a miracle he managed to shoot down that plane on the first shot.

Pulling into the Fort Stratum construction yard in one of the Yakuza Stingers that they lent him to use, he was returning with dozens of thousands of dollars worth of the new popular drug SPANK. There are dozens of drugs easily available now to abuse; new one's coming out each year with promises that this would be the one to put the others to shame. The perfect high, where you can't tell fantasy from reality, brings the animal inside you out, and you feel tall and mighty even though you're not worth shit. No wonder there were so many users in Liberty City… If you were a nobody and didn't have the balls to work your way up to something, you might as well fool yourself and enjoy your short time on this ultra capitalist democratic hellhole.

The stuff is powerful enough in high doses that you could actually convince someone to suicide bomb any target you wished, just give them the explosives and point your finger to where to go. He had experienced this himself first hand when Catalina and the Yardies set him up in that back parking lot surrounded by drugged up mad men.

Just coming back from a mission where he shot down one of their delivery planes, it was now final; the Cartel no longer had any drug money coming in. With their Yardie street corner dealers' long dead, coffee house fronts smashed to splinters, and their last plane delivery stolen from them, the war on their front was looking grim.

Stepping out of the car and walking over to the elevator to get to the floor Asuka was on, where she had been torturing that pathetic grease ball Miguel for days making him squeal. Maria was keeping her company at the moment; it was apparently her new found talent in torture extraction that gave them the useful gem that the Cartel were expecting a SPANK shipment today. Everyone finds something they are talented at, was only a matter of time before she found something for her besides being able to take more than one dick at once. Asuka… A deadly but fair Japanese beauty, who was putting her dominatrix fetish to good use whenever she got the opportunity. Even when very serious matters like avenging her brother's death were at hand, she would still manage to turn all her bitter anger into a sexual thrill. As he neared the top, he was expecting a smile, his pay check, her usual remark about how she admired strong dependable men like him, and of course, probably bull shit from Maria.

When he got to the top though, what he saw caught him off guard, which was not an easy thing to do to a guy who knows only how to survive.

Asuka laid cold and dead, and Miguel was finally put out of his misery, Maria nowhere to be seen. The Cartel were desperate, they knew they were on the verge of being annihilated so they were putting up one last offensive front to turn things around, and while he was gone for a couple hours they did just that. He looked down at Asukas body, and the closest thing to a human emotion besides hate went up his spine for the first time since he was very young, hitting him all at once. She was the one that brought him back upon his feet when he was left for dead by Salvatore Leone, that gave him a fair chance to rid himself of his former Mafia connections and get his revenge.

Not long after doing a bit of work for her she spoke highly of him to her brother Kenji, who wasn't as quick to trust him but also appreciated his talents and gave him work against both their enemies. He terminated their relationship though for his own personal agenda and Donald Loves greed when he ran him down in the Cartel Cruiser to frame them so the gang war would be full blown out. Even though he intended to just use her for his own purposes, he admired her further by how effective her counter attack was, it all worked out perfectly until now. She wanted all the Columbians dead, as did he, and she never would of betrayed him like he did her. Despite the concept of honour being long dead in the west, amongst all the pressure to give it up, the Yakuza never did, that was one thing to respect about them. He would have always been her trusted handsome handyman… Maybe even more someday. Oh well… What's been done is done, and she is gone, just another face that has lost its life force, eventually hers would fade away out of his mind like the hundreds of others over the years, and soon all he will remember is maybe her name.

He then looked around further and he saw there was a piece of paper attached to one of the metal beams of the building. He pulled it off and immediately recognized Catalina's hand writing, he could hear her fiery Mexican accent clearly in his head as he read it which made his hands shake and back tense up in rage. It said, "I've got your precious Maria. If you don't want her face to look like she fell out with the butcher, bring $500,000 to the Villa at Cedar Grove."

He walked off towards the elevator reading it over and over not giving Asukas body another look. Precious Maria? The stupid broad probably told her she was dating him, would never touch that shit though… Maria was the main reason he got fucked over with Salvatore when she told him they were an item together, but she did save his life at the last second when she texted him though… She is also the one that introduced him to Asuka in the first place, how the hell they became friends, he'll never know. He had more than enough cash for the ransom money needed, but it was obviously a trap, Catalina was never to be trusted…

This was his chance though to finally end it, end the life of the bitch that backstabbed him after an 8-year relationship, shooting him and leaving him to the mercy of the cops. Even if he went in head on without planning anything out, it wouldn't matter, if life in Liberty has taught him anything these last few months, it was that he could handle any situation presented to him.

He alone was responsible for bringing the Triads in Chinatown down to nothing, he wiped the Purple Nine gang off the streets for good, brought the Leone family to ruin, killed many a Yardie and Diablo scum bag that got in his way… This whole city of 8 million people had been brought down to its knees to suck his dick through his skill and ruthlessness, so if he could conquer… Surviving shouldn't be an issue.  
He went down the elevator for the last time and got back into the Yakuza Stinger that Asuka would lend him whenever he needed it. Turning, the radio to Lips 106, which was Asuka and many of the other Yakuzas favourite station, for a little memorial to her, before she was out of his mind for good. He then drove off to his Staunton Island hideout, to get the cash together and the guns needed for his final great confrontation in Liberty City before he moved on from these parts.

Whether it was with a bullet, or his bare hands on her neck, Catalina would be dead…


End file.
